


Learned Things in the Dark

by Lauralot



Series: Alexander Pierce should have died slower [37]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Play, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Gen, Humiliation, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Non-Sexual Age Play, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Self-Hatred, Stuffed Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19253839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: Bucky googles himself.It doesn't go well.





	Learned Things in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> As a **head's up** , this fic deals with Bucky finding and reacting to fictional fandom communities that are based off of real life fandom communities. This seems like the sort of thing that could easily ruffle feathers, so if you're concerned about the content, check the end notes for a summary of the story, Bucky's reactions, and my views as the author.

**I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.**  
—Barbara Taylor Brown, “In Praise of Darkness”

Bucky’s never snagged a kitten on his prosthetic before.

He doesn’t often snag anything on it; the plates automatically shift and contract to keep out debris without any conscious effort on his part. Sometimes contaminants are too fine or too overwhelming to be avoided, like the HYDRA mission that put him through a sandstorm in the desert or the time Steve poured glitter over his head. Still, for the most part, Bucky has to begrudgingly admit that the arm’s design is pretty brilliant at self-preservation as well as dexterity, strength, and durability. It probably also helps that he’s tended to wear long sleeves ever since he got away from HYDRA.

But he’s not wearing long sleeves now because he slept over at Crystal’s, and everyone’s still in their pajamas even though it’s almost noon. His Avengers pajamas have a T-shirt on top, so his prosthetic is fully exposed to Pico de Gato. As far as Bucky can remember, this is the first time the kitten’s seen his arm. Well, last night was the first time, but last night it was dark and Bucky wasn’t using Crystal’s laptop show off Steve’s illustrations for the Bucky Bear book they’re going to publish. The typing and the light reflecting off the metal must be irresistible to Pico de Gato, because she started swatting at his arm pretty much the second Crystal handed him the laptop.

Bucky could ignore that. He can’t ignore a whole kitten dangling from his triceps and mewling in distress as she tries to pull free.

“Pico,” Crystal scolds. She leans across Bucky, blocking his view of Steve’s sketch of the Bearvengers gathered around the toy chest with Bucky Bear asleep inside. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was this ridiculous.”

“Really?” Mayling already has her hands around the kitten’s squirming body, trying to lift her off. “On Tuesday she got her head stuck under the dresser.”

“The dresser doesn’t move and make sci-fi noises,” Crystal protests.

“Here.” Mayling gently lifts Pico de Gato, trying to work her claw out from between the plates. “Bucky, can you relax your arm?”

He goes as slack as possible, and after a few more seconds of maneuvering, Mayling has the cat freed.

“We should cut her nails,” Crystal says. “She caught herself on my sleeping bag last night.”

“You mean _I_ should cut her nails while you hold her.” Mayling passes the kitten to Crystal as she says it, before standing up and crossing into the kitchen. She opens a drawer and rummages around, then takes out what Bucky guesses are cat nail clippers. They look like tiny, slightly curved scissors. “Don’t let her claw me.”

Crystal narrowly avoids a swipe from Pico de Gato’s paws herself. “She’s onto us.”

“Wrap her in a towel, then.”

“I can’t put her down! She’ll hide under the couch.”

Mayling sighs deeply and stalks off toward the bathroom, leaving Crystal to wrestle with the kitten alone. Bucky starts to move the laptop to one side so he can help, but she waves him off.

“She’ll freak out more if she feels crowded,” Crystal says. She tilts her head toward the laptop. “Those pictures Steve made are fantastic. When’s your book coming out?”

Bucky shrugs. “We’re signing the contracts with the publisher tomorrow. Then I guess they have to do editing and layouts and get all the copies printed. And interviews and press releases and stuff.”

The thought of interviews shouldn’t make his stomach twinge as badly as it does. He gave interviews for the prosthetic initiative, after all, and these will be just like that: prerecorded statements or questions answered through email. He won’t have to look at a stranger and try not to see judgment or morbid anticipation that he’ll regress and make a scene.

But the initiative wasn’t as personal as the Bucky Bear book will be. 

It had seemed so personal when he came up with the idea. Writing the speech he recorded and making the videos to show how he maintained his arm, it felt like he’d peeled off all his skin along with the metal plates. But that was just his body. This book will cut so much deeper than that. It’s basically a sanitized version of his torture in HYDRA and the wreck he was when Steve found him after Insight. Once it’s published, he might as well strip down and invite the whole world to take a look. Retelling his fucked up life through teddy bears probably won’t make people more sympathetic. They didn’t pull any punches in their comments after the tapes of Bucky describing his abuse played in court, after all. Why would bears change their minds?

He doesn’t know how people reacted to the prosthetics initiative. JARVIS never let him read any reactions.

Mayling returns, unfolding a towel as she walks toward Crystal and Pico on the floor. “Don’t claw me,” she tells the kitten sternly. “Or you won’t get any treats after this.”

Bucky glances at the laptop. Crystal and Mayling are busy wrapping up Pico de Gato, and Crystal doesn’t have parental controls set up like JARVIS does.

He shouldn’t. The last time he read about himself online, he had panic attacks and tried to expose himself to guns.

But that feels like ages ago now. It was before he started his charity. Before he was comfortable with himself enough to write his story down or tell Freddie about how he tried to return to HYDRA. He hadn’t even remembered the ducklings existed back then, let alone helped them figure out how to move on with their lives. He hadn’t rescued Rumlow from overdosing.

Bucky’s stronger now. He can handle it. He has to if he wants to publish his darkest experiences.

He closes the PDF of Steve’s illustrations and returns to the browser where he’d pulled up his email. He glances at his friends, still busy with the cat, and types “Bucky Barnes” into the search bar.

His Wikipedia article is the first result, just like the last time he Googled himself. The rest of the page is full of news articles, history resources, and legal blogs discussing his trial. It’s not what Bucky’s looking for. He’s not sure exactly what it is he’s after, but he won’t find what people really think of him in biography excerpts and wiki talk pages. He scrolls to the bottom of the page and clicks on the last listed page of results. Then scrolls to the bottom of that page and does it again. And again.

He’s not sure how far back he’s gone when one of the result titles finally catches his eye. “I’ll Be Seeing You: The Stucky Fic Forums.” _I’ll be seeing you._ There’s a faint melody playing in his head, a half-remembered song from before he fell, and Bucky clicks the link without a second thought.

It’s a message board, divided into subforums: Rules, Off-Topic Talk, Historical Discussion, Stories. There’s no subforum titled News or Current Events, but maybe that’s what Stories means. New stories. Bucky clicks that and scans the list of thread titles, growing more confused with each line.

_[WIP] “Baby It’s Cold Outside” Stucky, Post-Ice, PWP, Wax Play, Temperature Play: Bucky knows Steve never wants to feel cold again_

_(Update, Final Chapter Post 128) I Dreamed I Held You in My Arms: Angst, Pining through WWII to the Fall (Pre-Ice, UST, Downer Ending)_

_Untitled Oneshot—Pre-Ice, First Time, CW: Underage_

It’s like trying to read a code with no cipher. UST seems like it ought to be a time zone, but he’s sure there isn’t one with that name. PWP and CW don’t sound like anything. Bucky glances up, but Crystal and Mayling are still struggling with Pico de Gato. Besides, they might not approve of what he’s doing. Once Bucky had a panic attack just because he saw them kiss each other goodbye; why should they think he can handle what the Internet has to say?

_NOW AM FOUND: Steve takes in the WS, dialogue from the video of Steve finding Bucky in DC, Post-Ice, One Shot_

_“Batteries not included” Steve and Bucky have their own toy story. Post-Ice, PWP, Dildos, Vibrators, Anal Beads, Cock Rings, Butt Plugs, Fleshlights_

It’s like being back in cryo; Bucky’s immediately frozen and rigid. It’s porn. It’s porn of him and _Steve_ but Steve’s _safe_ , Steve’s his best friend and his family and he’s never laid a hand on Bucky because he’s nothing like Pierce and he promised he’d never touch Bucky or hurt Bucky and neither would anyone else in the Tower, Steve would never let anyone hurt him again, Steve is _safe_ — 

Bucky tries to press the back button but he’s too numb and startled to force his hand over to the trackpad. All he can do is move from the down arrow to the up and scroll backward on the page until the text is back to the posts he didn’t realize were sexual, except—

Except there’s a subforum at the top of the page he hadn’t noticed at first, too busy trying to decipher the initials in the thread titles. But now he sees it and it’s titled “Stucky Ageplay: Don’t Like, Don’t Read” and Bucky knows that word, hears it likes glass scraping in his skull, the way it did before he knew to call it ageplay, before he’d heard the words kink or consensual, back when there was no choice and all he knew and all he wanted was approval and _love_ and the only way to get it was to play the game no matter how tired he felt or hurt he was, because those were excuses and excuses are manipulations and only bad boys use them.

Bucky doesn’t mean to click the subforum. But he does, and it loads, and he can’t look away.

_NSAP H/C Post-Ice: Guess How Much I Love You – Steve gives Bucky a bath after he wets the bed_

_(COMPLETE) Game theory: Bucky learns that not all adults’ games are bad. Post-Ice, NSAP, ADBL, Bottles, Wetting, Messing_

_Oneshot pre-ice/post-ice “I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad” Steve was Bucky’s daddy before he fell (Sexual age play, spanking, enemas, pacifiers, PTSD)_

_New chapter post 41: Velveteen Rabbit: Bucky feels like a lifeless weapon. Steve tells him love makes him Real. Mental illness, self-harm, NSAP, wetting and diapering_

_You people are sick._

That last one isn’t a story. At least, Bucky doesn’t think it is. The thread is marked as locked, but there are multiple posts in it. He can’t stop himself from looking.

The initial poster’s screen name is ShouldBeAshamed. There’s no avatar and it looks like this is the person’s only post.

_I cannot believe one of the web’s oldest Stucky sites allows this vile garbage,_ the post begins. _I’d have thought so-called supporters of Barnes and Rogers, people who fought to keep their love alive for decades while historians denied it, would be above smearing them now with HYDRA’s sick perversions. These heroes gave up their lives to defend a country that would have strung them up if it knew they were lovers, and now they’re finally reunited and can express it and you celebrate that by making them playact Barnes’ rape in your gross wank fodder? You play into the gay=pedophile stereotype that’s been used to oppress and attack gays for years? I guess it’s true when they say that trash always shows itself in the end. Every advertiser who buys space on this sick site deserves to go out of business, and every moderator who allows this pedo shit shouldn’t be able to show their face anywhere outside of the dark web. I’m done with this forum forever, and I won’t be the last to see you for what you really are. Choke and die_

The first reply is from a user named BuckysBunny. All it says is _lol no._

Below that there’s a response from Brooklyn_Boys that reads _Claiming ‘gross wank fodder’ for my custom title, sorry not sorry._

_Did you even listen to the tapes at the trial?_ a post from WS Stan begins. _Bucky Barnes **himself** said that he and Steve Rogers ageplay. May be if you took a second to get off your high-horse of Socially Acceptable, Morally Pure Porn™ you’d see that you’re kinkshaming the same heroes you’re white-knighting._

GrenadeHugger: _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, war hero, mythic assassin, longest suffering prisoner of war, Captain America’s lover, is a Little and no amount of bitching from the Helen Lovejoys of the world will change that._

PatrioticAsthmatic: _look, i usually stay out of this forum because ykinmk and squick and everything and it’s clear that this was a bad faith post just to piss people off, but can you all please quit parading the trial tapes as proof positive of your ‘cute ddlb lovers uwu’ fantasies? ‘i don’t think he really likes to play with me.’ that’s verbatim what bucky told his doctors. doctors who are treating him for dissociative disorders btw. trying to **fix** him. steve doesn’t like it. bucky doesn’t like it. they finally have each other back but because of what hydra did steve may never get to be intimate with him again. it’s not cute, it’s a goddamn tragedy. and it’s one thing to write stories where that’s not the case, but don’t try and claim it’s great in the real world._

buckybby94: _Excuse me? We heard like a minute of tape. One tiny fragment of conversation from a whole session. We know from the doctor’s testimony that Bucky’s a nervous wreck. Him thinking Steve doesn’t like being a caregiver one time doesn’t make it true. Stucky shippers bring up the trial whenever possible to crow there’s proof they’re lovers, but everybody starts hemming and hawing and whining about trauma and brainwashing whenever we ageplayers point out their kink. Stop downplaying their relationship because it’s squicky to you. we get enough crap for our kinks without people picking apart our most famous representation._

Asthmatic Patriot: _Just ignore her, buckybby. Take it from a fandom old, some shippers are never happy unless they’re proving their superiority. Once upon a time they’d bitch if you wrote ‘ravishment’ fics with Red Skull or the Nazis. Then anything but the most vanilla sex between the boys was wrong. Made them look like improper degenerates instead of American heroes. Then Steggy vs Stucky, then you were sick for still writing about Rogers once he turned up alive, then any fic about Barnes was exploiting his suffering, and now age play’s the new bogeyman. It’s not you or your kink, they just love performative outrage._

Brookful-Dodger: _I cant believe their’s still people pissed at us for liking Stucky ageplay lol. shit like freezer trash exists and you’re wasting ur breathe yelling at us?_

There are shrieks and laughter in the apartment. Pico de Gato’s slipped free from the towel and raced to the bedroom. Mayling and Crystal are chasing after her, scolding each other for carelessness between their giggles.

He shouldn’t do it. He should close the laptop now and call Steve to take him home and just try to forget he ever saw any of this. He already has no idea how he’s ever going to look Steve in the eye again, let alone allow himself to be carried or read to or anything else that used to feel comforting before a few minutes ago.

But he moves the cursor back to the search bar and types “Bucky Barnes freezer trash.” He can’t help it.

The first result is some group on a journaling platform titled “HYDRA Asset Cold Storage Community.”

Bucky’s stomach sinks.

The latest post in the community is by a user called Trash Queen. It reads _Trash Prompts Round 3._

_If you don’t know the rules at this point, here’s a brief refresher: Nothing is safe, sane, or consensual. Read at your own risk. Don’t be a jackass except to Bucky Barnes and friends. Don’t pretend your maggot-infested dumpster is the honeymoon suite at the Hilton._

_What we are: Writers and enthusiasts of non-con, forced ageplay, torture, whump, abuse, and all the aftermath of the aforementioned. If awfulterriblewrong things happening to your heroes and their asses isn’t up your alley, this isn’t the place for you._

_What we are not: Hydra Whores or Dark Avengers, so if you’re here to yell at us for thinking Bucky Barnes is any less pure than the driven snow or that he’s the unwilling bicycle for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, you’re in the wrong garbage bin. We can recommend some sites if that’s your kink. Yell at us for what we’ve actually done. Or don’t, it’s boring._

_If by some unholy misfortune you are Bucky Barnes and you’ve stumbled upon this site: Hello, Mr. Barnes. Thank you for your years of service, and our deepest sympathies for all you’ve suffered. This site is not for you and we advise you to use the back button now._

_For everyone else, let’s get this latest round of freezer trash started._

Below the post are multiple discussion threads.

_Pierce/Bucky plushophilia, Pierce gets Bucky a stuffie with fuck holes_

_Rumlow/WS, “babysitting,” Pierces orders Rumlow to attend to his snowflake’s needs on a long mission_

_OT: Does anyone know if Barnes is circumcised? Trying to ensure my art fill is accurate._

_Unprompted fill: To The Quick (Pierce cuts the Soldier’s nails too short, bloodplay & dacryphilia)_

_United States v. Barnes Redux: Video of WS’s torture airs at the trial, Steve reacts_

_Steve/Stoicism, ageplay, he hates doing what Pierce did, but he’ll do anything for Bucky_

Crystal and Mayling are back, and they’re not holding the kitten anymore. They’re talking to Bucky, but he can’t hear them over his heartbeat. He’s breathing in short, shallow gasps, shaking all over, the words onscreen swimming before his eyes, and then the words aren’t there anymore because Crystal’s closing the laptop and putting Bucky Bear in his hands and Mayling’s got her phone out, and Bucky knows without hearing that she’s calling Daddy.

He wants to knock the phone out of her hand, but he can’t move. He doesn’t want Daddy to see him like this. He doesn’t want anybody to see him ever again.

*

“Bucky,” Steve says.

Bucky ignores him.

He’s been ignoring Steve for the better part of a day now, ever since the panic attack finally subsided once they got back to the Tower. It’s not just Steve; Pepper, Sam, and Nat all stopped by his floor yesterday, trying to cheer him up. He wouldn’t let them in. He wouldn’t respond to Steve’s increasingly frantic offers to call his therapists, either.

There’s no point. Nothing anyone says or does will change the facts, and the facts are that Bucky’s more of a laughingstock than he could have ever imagined. It was bad enough just _knowing_ that the information from his therapy sessions was public knowledge following his trial. Seeing people take that information and make it a _game,_ use it as inspiration for _porn_ , get off on the things Pierce did—

He can’t bear it. Yesterday in Crystal’s apartment, Steve had tried to get him to drink water while he was hyperventilating, but Bucky was shaking too hard to hold a glass. Crystal had brought out a goddamn sippy cup and Bucky had actually screamed because he just knew that somewhere online someone had written some story where the Winter Soldier got a sippy cup of roofied milk and then got gangbanged by the STRIKE team, or something where Steve gave him a cup and tucked him in and read him stories and that was _just as bad_ because Steve was his daddy for _him_ and it was _theirs_ and now the whole world knew and the whole world had decided it was _sexy_ and _dirty_ and something for people who didn’t even _know_ them to use to try and prove that they were right about their relationship, and it wasn’t _fair._

He’d screamed and knocked the sippy cup out of Crystal’s hand. It left a dent in the drywall where it hit.

Bucky wishes he could apologize for that, but he can’t. He can’t look at her. He can’t look at anyone. He’s going to cut his hair and grow a beard and move far far away and live under an assumed name where no one will ever find him, and no one will ever see him and think of the helpless idiot fuck toy in their stories. Maybe he’ll go to Bucharest. Romanian was one of the languages HYDRA programmed into him, and no one would think to look for him there. He doesn’t have any ties to Romania.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats.

But before he does any of that, he’s going to Maria’s office to sign the contracts for the stupid book that made him feel like he had the stamina to look any of this up to begin with. Maybe people will feel bad once they read it. Maybe they’ll look the pictures of Bucky Bear all alone and locked in that toy box and they’ll realize how sick it is to make his trauma into their turn-ons. Maybe they’ll feel like monsters for what they’ve done.

But probably they’ll just write stories where Bucky Bear gets raped by Bear Secretary Pierce. Or bored human Pierce. Whatever.

He’s signing the contracts and then he’s stealing a Quinjet and leaving the country. And that’s it. No more bears, no more Avengers, no more being a kid. His stomach churns just hearing Steve’s voice, remembering the things he read.

“Buck, c’mon—”

Bucky speeds up as he turns the corner to Maria’s office, like he won’t be able to hear Steve if he gets him out of his peripheral vision. So of course that’s when he crashes into a complete stranger and sends him sprawling to the floor.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters.

The man’s in what was probably an impeccably pressed suit before Bucky collided with him, and the papers scattered around him look like a résumé. Maria had said a few days that she’d meet with them for the signing after she was done interviewing for a new assistant; her old one’s on maternity leave. The man’s wide-eyed and even paler than his red hair warrants, and Bucky assumes that’s from coming out of an interview with one of the most intimidating women ever only to crash straight into the Winter Soldier afterward.

Bucky ought to help him up, but he’s frozen like yesterday. Except this time, there’s a strange _delight_ to it instead of horror. There’s at least one person who’s still afraid of him. Who sees the Winter Soldier and not a sex toy.

Steve steps around Bucky and offers his hand to the stranger. He doesn’t take it because he’s too busy scooping up his papers and stammering apologies.

“God, I—I’m so sorry, I was lost in my notes—I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s not your fault.” Steve gathers the last of the papers as the man gets to his feet. “We should have been watching where we were going. Steve Rogers.”

“David Cox,” says the man. “It’s an honor, really it is—I’ve admired both of you since I was a kid—I thought—I hoped I might see the Avengers while I got the interview callback. I just wish I hadn’t been so clumsy about it.”

He glances at Bucky when he speaks, and he doesn’t look scared anymore. His eyes are still wide, though, and all Bucky can think about is how this man must have watched his trial. He must know that Bucky regresses and calls Steve Daddy and wets the bed and couldn’t breathe when he used to suck Pierce’s dick. Bucky wonders if David Cox reads the stories people write about him, if he prefers the ones with Steve fucking him or the ones where HYDRA does it. Maybe he has favorite authors. Maybe he has a whole folder of bookmarks for stories where all the Avengers run train on Bucky and then reward him with cookies and juice boxes. Maybe that’s why David Cox is looking at him that way, to see if he measures up to the bratty little slut in the bookmarks.

Bucky starts to cry, and whatever David Cox’s opinion of him, this can’t be improving it.

*

“I’m wondering, Bucky,” Miriam says, “what you thought would come of Googling yourself.”

She doesn’t say it like an accusation, but Bucky’s not stupid. That’s what it is. If he hadn’t looked himself up then he wouldn’t have read about all the awful stories people write, and then he wouldn’t feel sick for wanting Daddy to hold him, or for holding Bucky Bear, or just for _existing._

He feels sick now. His tummy hurts so bad and he’s winding his fingers too tight in Bucky Bear’s fur but he can’t help it.

“Last time I looked up my name everybody was mad at me,” he mutters. “For what the Soldier did. I thought maybe the charity stuff would change their minds.” He rubs at Bucky Bear’s nose, and a new wave of nausea ripples through him.

“Why is it so important to know what strangers think of you?” Cornelius asks.

Bucky squeezes tighter onto his bear and shuts his eyes so he won’t see himself doing it. He feels like he’s about to be sick. “Because I wanna make people happy. I want them to love me. That’s what my last daddy made me want.”

“He made you want him to love you,” Miriam points out. “Not strangers.”

Bucky can only shrug. When he was with HYDRA, everything hurt. When his daddy was happy, it didn’t hurt as much. He’d wanted to make everybody happy, because maybe then things would always hurt less.

“Steve told us what your friends found you reading.” Cornelius glances down at his notes. “You must have gone far back in your searches to find those pages, James.”

Shifting in his seat, Bucky rubs his bear’s nose again. His mouth feels full of saliva and bile and he has to fight to keep it down. “The first pages were all history and legal stuff. I wanted to see what people really thought.”

“Not everyone writes fan fiction.” Miriam’s voice is soft. “Of those that do, there’s an even smaller percentage who write about real people. What you read isn’t representative of how the world sees you, Bucky.”

“All anybody knows about me that doesn’t come from history books is what they heard at the trial.” Bucky’s eyes are welling with tears again. He wishes he’d never agreed to let Maria use his therapy tapes. Even if he’d gone to jail without them, at least people would still think of him as the Winter Soldier. They’d be scared of him instead of laughing. “That _is_ how everybody sees me.”

“James.” Cornelius sounds stern enough to startle Bucky into looking up. “How do you think people view Tony Stark?”

“As Iron Man?” Or as a billionaire. Or a genius inventor. Maybe some people are still mad at him for when he used to make weapons. Bucky isn’t sure. But Tony’s not famous for getting molested and acting like a five year old, so what difference does it make how people see him?

“I asked Tony before our session started if I could discuss this with you,” Cornelius says. “Tony told me once that he’d seen erotic art people had drawn of his captivity in Afghanistan. A reporter showed it to him in an interview after he’d revealed himself as Iron Man. He didn’t give an outward reaction, so the discussion was scrapped from the publication. But every public figure is someone’s sexual fantasy, James. And sometimes those fantasies are violent.”

That’s _awful_ , and Bucky has to fight the urge to retch again. Tony almost died when the Ten Rings had him. His only friend there _did_ die, and Tony was all alone with his chest full of shrapnel and a suit that barely worked. And people made porn of that? Did they do that when Loki brainwashed Clint? Or with Natasha in the Red Room? He’s breathing too fast, just like yesterday. How can anybody be so horrible? Don’t they care how much these things hurt?

“James? James, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“What Neil means is just that this is something all celebrities experience.” The couch shifts as Miriam sits down beside Bucky. “You know Tony isn’t defined by people making that kind of content. Neither are you.”

“People know stuff about Tony!” Bucky protests. “They don’t know anything about me!”

“They know that you were a Howling Commando,” Cornelius says.

“And they know that you were found not guilty,” adds Miriam. “And that you helped found a charity for amputees. And soon they’ll know you through your book.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t wanna publish that anymore.”

“Bucky—”

“I don’t! Everybody’s just gonna read it and use it to write more awful stuff and it won’t actually help anybody like I wanted and I don’t wanna help anybody anyway if they’re gonna write that stuff about me and my friends! It’s gross and it’s wrong and so am I for making Daddy do it and I can’t help anybody anyway!”

Tears come spilling out. His last daddy always said it was bad to cry, but Bucky can’t help it. The whole world knows him as HYDRA’s sex slave and he can’t even do _that_ the way he was ordered to.

He startles when Miriam puts her arm around him. Usually Bucky Bear would bite anyone who caught him off guard like that, but Bucky Bear’s quiet and still. Maybe he’s grossed out by Bucky too. Maybe he’s mad that he wasn’t in any of the stories to protect Bucky because Bucky talked about Bunny in the court tapes but not about him.

“Bucky,” Miriam begins.

“I _am._ I’m thirty and a veteran and a sniper and the best assassin in the entire world and I still act like a little kid and wet the bed and make Daddy take care of me and if it was wrong to do that to me then it’s wrong to do to him and I should grow up and get over it but I can’t and I don’t even _want_ to and I don’t think I’ll ever not want to, not even when I’m old, and that’s as gross as everything else about me!”

“ _Bucky,_ ” Miriam says. “Breathe.”

He does, eyes shut, listening to her count to ten over and over. He can’t stop rubbing on Bucky Bear’s nose. Her arm is still over his shoulders and it’s warm.

“Some adults who ageplay never outgrow it,” she says gently, finally. “People of any age can take comfort in being cared for and giving up control. If your friends from the littles’ group want to ageplay when they’re old, would that bother you?”

“But they’re _not_ me.” He even sounds whiny to himself, but he can’t help it. “They chose it because that’s what they wanna do. I shouldn’t want it.”

“James.” Cornelius’s voice is as soft as Miriam’s. “Do you remember early on in our sessions, when you were having dreams about Pierce? The study I showed you?”

Bucky’s stomach lurches harder than ever. His face is burning, and he can feel the blush spreading down his whole body. Those sessions were right after he felt brave enough to talk to Cornelius alone, since he couldn’t bear to say those things in front of Daddy. Those nightmares hadn’t been like the other ones that made him wake up crying and shaking with the sheets soaked. They hadn’t been like nightmares at all.

He used to dream about the way his last daddy had held him and touched him, sometimes. In the dreams it had always felt nice, even when he’d dreamed about games that used to hurt. And he’d wake up and the sheets would be wet, but not like an accident. Or he’d wake up still hard and stand under icy water in the shower, biting his tongue and scrubbing at his skin until it was raw.

Those dreams went away a long time ago. He doesn’t know if that’s because now he has people to hug him and hold his hands without wanting more or if a side effect from all his medications killed his libido. He doesn’t really care what stopped them; he’d have been happy to never think of them again.

Bucky had been sure the dreams proved he was bad when he was having them. His mind still wanted Pierce and HYDRA and so did his body. Steve shouldn’t have to put up with a whiny, needy traitor like Bucky.

Then Cornelius had talked to him about taking comfort in pleasure even if it came from an otherwise bad situation. They’d discussed Stockholm syndrome and lingering affection for abusers and even for familiar types of abuse. Cornelius told Bucky about how fantasies could persist even if the person having them knew they would be bad in reality. He’d shown him a study about women with rape fantasies because he couldn’t find a study with the same questions for men.

“Over half the people they talked to had rape fantasies,” Bucky mumbles. He can’t remember the exact number.

“Sixty-two percent if I recall correctly,” Cornelius says. “And one in every six women in the United States is the victim of an attempted or successful rape. College students, like those surveyed in that study, are three times more likely than other female demographics to experience sexual violence. Of that sixty-two percent, James, statistically some of them must have been survivors of assault.”

Bucky’s head swims. This isn’t the first time these numbers have come up in a session, but they’re always so huge and horrifying. He doesn’t know what Cornelius wants to him to say.

“Do you think those women in the overlap are wrong to have rape fantasies?” Cornelius asks. “If it’s wrong for you to enjoy things you experienced during Pierce’s abuses, is it also wrong for them to fantasize about events that hurt them?”

He bites his lip, squeezing tighter onto his bear. Bucky Bear’s growling faintly now. He doesn’t like it when the doctors try to catch Bucky in a contradiction. It makes Bucky Bear think of the handlers who used to trick the Winter Soldier so they could punish him for mistakes, even though the Worths have never hurt Bucky. “Maybe they had those fantasies before it happened to them,” he mutters.

“Maybe. But if they still had them afterward, is that wrong of them, James?”

His head hurts. Bucky Bear says that Cornelius is trying to prove that it’s okay for Bucky to like being little so that he’ll feel better, but Bucky can’t say that because it’s _not_ okay for him to be little and it’s not okay for strangers to turn his suffering into porn and if he says it’s okay to have rape fantasies then he’ll be saying that stuff’s okay too and he _won’t._

“Yes!” he snaps.

“Why is—”

“People wrote stories about Daddy fucking me when I’m little!” Bucky shouts. “They wrote us having sex even though the whole world knows what happened to me! And they wrote about my last daddy and all the stuff he did and they think it’s sexy and funny and it’s _not_ and no matter what you try to make me think I’ll never ever say it’s okay!”

He’s crying again. He wants to say he’s sorry for yelling, but that’s stupid and babyish and he won’t do it.

“I don’t think they believe your suffering is funny, Bucky,” Miriam says.

“Somebody asked for a story where I had to fuck a stuffed animal!”

Now Bucky Bear feels sick. Miriam doesn’t even blink.

“Sometimes people respond to upsetting things with dark humor. But usually people don’t spend hours writing and editing stories about sad or scary things just because it amuses them. We’ve been telling dark stories for as long as we’ve had stories, Bucky. I think there’s something about your past that resonates with these people. Something that helps them cope with their own struggles.”

“That’s not what this was! They weren’t writing about me getting better, they were writing about me getting raped!”

“Some of the stories were about presumably consensual encounters between you and Steve,” Cornelius says. Bucky wants to throw his bear at him, but he can’t bring himself to let go.

“And with regard to the stories about HYDRA,” Miriam adds softly, “you didn’t actually read them, Bucky.”

“I’m not going to!”

“I’m not saying you should,” she says quickly. “I wouldn’t suggest that. But some of the stories may have ended with your escape. Even the ones that didn’t, they’re still written by people who know that you made it out alive. The world knows that you’re free now. All these stories are written in that context.”

Bucky shakes his head. “You didn’t read them either. They weren’t like that.”

“We visited the website before this session, Bucky.”

And now he _is_ retching, body wracked with spasms and bile rising in his throat. It was bad enough seeing it. It was bad enough just _wondering_ if other people had seen it too. And now he knows they _have_ and they’re still telling him to get over it, and what if they think the stories are funny too, what if they knew about them before this, they’re supposed to be his doctors and they’ve probably been laughing behind his back since after the trial and maybe even before that—

“Bucky!” Miriam grabs his shoulders. Behind her, Cornelius is pouring a glass of water. Some of it sloshes onto the table. “Bucky, breathe. Listen to me. We didn’t read any of the stories.”

“We only wanted the context of what you saw,” Cornelius says. He holds the glass to Bucky’s mouth, but Bucky can’t make himself stop gasping to drink. “That’s all.”

“It must have been awful, finding that when you weren’t expecting it.” Miriam’s rubbing one hand down Bucky’s back. Her other hand is squeezing Bucky Bear’s foot. “I’m so sorry you experienced that. I truly am.”

He finally takes in a deep breath. It’s not a conscious effort to relax; his body needs air and it forces him to stop hyperventilating to get it. His eyes sting and he pushes the glass away.

“But Bucky,” Miriam says so softly, “the site did warn you not to read it.”

_If by some unholy misfortune you are Bucky Barnes, this site is not for you and we advise you to use the back button now._ The words flash in his memory and his temper flares. Bucky Bear’s growling so loud as Bucky’s fists clench. “That wasn’t a real warning! It was just another joke and they weren’t really talking to me!”

“The section addressed to you was a joke,” Cornelius says. “But there were warnings in general about the content. I imagine some of the phrases were unfamiliar to you—they were to us—but it mentioned torture and abuse.”

“So I deserved to get hurt seeing it?” His nails are digging into the flesh of his right hand. “It’s my fault? I can’t look at my own name because other people’s sick jokes are more important?”

“We’re not saying that.” Miriam takes hold of his hand. “We would never say that. This isn’t about fault, Bucky. Whether or not you intend to keep putting yourself in the public eye, there are always going to be references to you in the media that you’ll find triggering. And we need to work with you so you’ll be able to avoid the temptation to look at those things, but that doesn’t mean you deserved to get hurt. It was just an unfortunate incident, that’s all.”

He pulls his hand away. It wasn’t an _incident_. The people who wrote those stories didn’t mean to make something nice. It was deliberate. “They shouldn’t have put it online to begin with. They put up those warnings. They knew it wasn’t okay.”

“The warnings are meant to protect people, James. So that they’ll know if the content is something they can handle or something they should avoid.”

Bucky feels his teeth grinding. They’re his doctors. They’re supposed to be on _his_ side and they’re still talking about this like he’s unreasonable for not thinking it’s okay. “It’s my life! I don’t care if you think it helps people cope or whatever! It didn’t happen to them. It happened to _me._ ”

“Sometimes it’s easier to tell a story about difficult things when the characters don’t look like you.” Miriam puts her hand on Bucky Bear’s head as if he’s not growling at her. “Like your picture books about raccoons and princesses. Or the story you wrote about Bucky Bear.”

“That’s _my_ story!” Bucky tugs his bear away from her, squeezing him to his chest. “I can tell it however I want because it’s _mine_! The people writing about me online didn’t go through any of that!”

Cornelius clears his throat. “Some of those stories might have been written by people who were abused or assaulted, James. There’s no way to tell.”

He shuts his eyes so tight his head hurts. He wants to put his hands over his ears, but he can’t make himself let go of Bucky Bear. “Why do you want me to like this? I’m never gonna like it!”

“You don’t have to like it,” Miriam says. Bucky flinches, but she doesn’t touch him or his bear again. “That’s not what we want. But these stories exist and now you know about them, and you can’t change those facts. So it might help you to feel better if you try and find the positives of the situation.”

“There aren’t any positives.”

“If someone who went through a bad thing writes about you and feels better, that’s not positive?”

Bucky’s stomach twists. This isn’t fair. Those stories were _gross_ and they weren’t therapeutic at all but now he can’t help but think that maybe somebody somewhere wrote stories that _were_ and now he feels even worse than he already did. “Just ‘cause they write a story, that doesn’t mean they have to show it to people.” He doesn’t sound certain even to himself. “They can just write it for themselves.”

Cornelius sets the glass of water down on the coffee table in front of Bucky. “When your book comes out,” he says, “you’ll have critics who are going to say the same thing about you.”

“But it’s my—”

“I know that it’s your story, James. But there are going to be adults who say that it’s inappropriate for you to share your experiences with children, no matter how delicately you do it. They’ll say it’s perverse and corrupting, and that you should keep your experiences in your therapy sessions instead of telling them to the world.”

His eyes sting _again._ Shouldn’t he be out of tears by now? “Maybe there are people who got hurt and writing about me helps.” His voice sounds so weak. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other people who didn’t get hurt. People who are just writing or reading it to get off.”

“That’s true,” Miriam says. “But if someone who has gotten hurt reads those stories and gets something out of it, whether or not the author intended it, does that make you feel better at all?”

Bucky thinks of Harry Potter. It’s a story about a boy who lives locked up in a tiny room and the grown-ups in his life are hiding the truth about who he is from him. Bucky knows JK Rowling didn’t write it with an amnesiac assassin stuck in a cryo-chamber in mind, but that’s what he thought of when Bruce first read it to him. It made him feel less alone. Maybe this is like that, except.

JK Rowling wasn’t writing all the bad stuff happening to Harry to get off. Doesn’t that make a difference? Shouldn’t it?

“Even if it helps somebody,” he whispers, “that doesn’t mean other people aren’t reading it wrong.”

“Is there a wrong way to read a story, James?”

Bucky hates that he doesn’t know how to answer that, especially when he was so sure just a few minutes ago.

“Sexuality is complicated,” Cornelius continues. “People like things in fantasies that would be painful or scary or inconvenient or just unpleasant in real life.”

He thinks of his old dreams about Pierce again, and his face goes back to burning.

“And if people want to explore those complicated feelings with other people,” Miriam adds, “and everyone involved is informed about the kind of content they’re exploring, and no one’s having it sprung on them without warning, does it matter that much why those people want to explore those things? You and Tasha are little for different reasons, Bucky, but neither of you is wrong for wanting to be.”

Bucky’s fingers twist at the hem of his shirt. It feels like cheating to bring up Tasha, but he doesn’t know how to argue. It would kill him if somebody said he was sick for the dreams he used to have, or for being little with Daddy now. He already feels guilty enough about it anyway. But he can’t get those stories out of his head. They’re as vivid and painful as his memories of the people the Soldier killed.

“But it still hurts.” His voice cracks.

Then Miriam’s hugging him. She almost never does that and Bucky stiffens up, not knowing what to do. “I know, Bucky. I know. I’m so sorry you saw those things. We’ll do all that we can to help you move past that.”

“How?” he whispers.

“First, you need to take a deep breath,” Cornelius says. “And then a drink.”

So Bucky does.

*

“The three princes lived happily and well during their father’s reign,” Daddy reads. Bucky’s lying down next to him, his head on Daddy’s chest, feeling the words reverberate through him. “And they kept the Black Thief by their side for the rest of their days.”

He shuts the book of fairy tales, turning to look at Bucky. “You want another story, Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head, holding in a yawn. He doesn’t want Daddy to go, though. He felt shaky and exhausted after therapy and then sick and nervous when he and Daddy signed the contracts for the Bucky Bear book. He hasn’t really felt okay all day except for when Daddy came to tuck him in a little while ago, and Bucky wants him to stay until he’s asleep so he won’t be alone with his own thoughts. “Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you—” Bucky hesitates, staring down at his bear. He doesn’t know if he should ask or if it’ll only make him more upset, and Daddy too. “After you thawed out. Did you ever read stories people wrote about you?”

Daddy frowns. “Bucky, the Worths said we shouldn’t dwell on—”

“I don’t want details,” Bucky says quickly. “I just—I was curious.”

Daddy sighs. He’s quiet for so long Bucky thinks he’s not going to answer. “Once.”

Bucky stays quiet, worried that if he presses for details, Daddy might stop talking.

“After the Battle of New York. I’d gone to see Peggy, but she didn’t recognize me that day. I’d already seen that people wrote stories about all of us during the war, but I’d never read them. They didn’t look like anything I really wanted to see.” Daddy shakes his head. “But I felt so lonely. I guess I thought it would be like seeing my old friends again.”

“What did you read?”

“Some story where neither of us fell and we went home with Peggy and the Howlies.” Daddy puts his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, pulling him close. “It was short. None of the voices were right. And they got all these little details wrong, about the uniforms and the planes and just life in general back then.”

“But did it make you feel better?” Bucky asks. “Less lonely?”

“Yeah,” Daddy says. He ruffles Bucky’s hair. “For a little while.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content Summary/Warnings:** Bucky decides to google his name and stumbles onto a Real People Fic Stucky shipping community, which includes explicit sexual content that he sees summaries of but does not actually read. This includes fics related to the abuse and forced ageplay he underwent while in HYDRA. He also finds a HYDRA RPF darkfic community mostly focused around art and stories of his torture during captivity. He has a panic attack and persistent, intrusive thoughts of others mocking, judging, and masturbating to his trauma. Bucky's initial reaction to these communities is intensely negative: he thinks they're sick and full of sadists who think rape and torture are funny. He doesn't think anyone should be writing these stories, and definitely not putting them online if they do. He has a session with his therapists who point out that writing dark content doesn't necessarily mean trivializing it, and suggest various reasons why people might want to view that content.
> 
> I myself write a ton of darkfic, both to work through my own issues and just because I'll get an idea for a story and think "hey, that'd be cool." Personally I don't write or read RPF, but if its fans aren't shoving it in celebrities' faces or getting angry and aggressive when a real person doesn't act in accord with their fanon version, then I think it's just like any other kind of fanfic. As long as content is appropriately warned for and not forced on the unexpecting, I don't really have a problem with any kind of story. Your kink is not my kink and that's okay. Please don't take Bucky's feelings in this fic as a condemnation of real life fandoms: he's triggered and overwhelmed and his reactions make sense for him, but I don't mean to vilify darkfic or RPF. I hope I was able to express that in the therapy session, and I also hope that scene didn't come off as "let me lecture the audience for a while." Bucky's still not okay with this stuff even if he can empathize with why people might make it, and I don't mean to suggest that anyone else _has_ to be okay with things they find upsetting either. We all have our own limits, and those should be respected.
> 
> Massive thank yous to [OMOWatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMOWatcher/pseuds/OMOWatcher), [WhatEvenAmI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI), dragongirlG, sailorcharon, ZepysGirl, hyperthetical, Jasper, ellie_nors, achingwithfreshlight, Hobbit, baked potato, Blueberry?, puppyfangs, Bucky Barnes in Booty Shorts, and bucky, but dickless for their invaluable help with this fic. I knew next to nothing about RPF and its communities before I started writing this, and now thanks to their help I have all sorts of headcanons of Bucky RPF fandom schisms and discourse topics and all manner of things there wasn't room for in this fic. You guys are the best.
> 
> Since she's female, the cat should probably technically be named Pica de Gata, but Crystal kept it Pico de Gato so the pun would be clearer.
> 
> Bucky had a panic attack over his friends kissing in WhatEvenAmI's fic [Dating 101.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195374/chapters/15773998)
> 
> [I'll Be Seeing You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l44_n60QQ8) is a song from 1938. The Stucky forum isn't based off any particular site, but the freezer trash community is a loving parody of [The Hydra Trash Meme.](https://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/)
> 
> David Cox is a real, minor character from the Cap comics, like the Worths and Steve's therapist.
> 
> The abstract for the study Cornelius references is [here,](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19085605) and here's [an article](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean) about it. The rape statistics come from [RAINN.](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence)
> 
> Bucky's books about the raccoon and the princess are _A Terrible Thing Happened_ and _The Princess and the Fog_ , picture books about trauma and depression respectively. They were first mentioned in _All Down on Paper._
> 
> The story Steve reads Bucky is [The Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen.](http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/116.htm)
> 
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](http://lauralot89.tumblr.com)!


End file.
